Saturday, June 23, 2012

Computers use to be people that did computing for the war effort. Rooms full of women doing computations by hand. Today computers are logic devices buried in silicon chips.

There have been many steps in between and Alan Turing helped greatly in getting us started on that path. The Google Blog has a nice write up to help us look back and reflect before looking forward again.

“The past is a foreign country—they do things differently there.” It’s a saying that rings especially true in the world of technology. But while innovating requires us to focus on the future, there are times when it’s important to look back. Today—the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth—is one such moment.

Turing's homosexualityresulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, fromcyanide poisoning. An inquest determined it was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war because of his sexual orientation.[6]

Robotics: Anticipating Asimov

by PAUL GILSTER on JUNE 21, 2012

My friend David Warlick and I were having a conversation yesterday about what educators should be doing to anticipate the technological changes ahead. Dave is a specialist in using technology in the classroom and lectures all over the world on the subject. I found myself saying that as we moved into a time of increasingly intelligent robotics, we should be emphasizing many of the same things we’d like our children to know as they raise their own families. Because a strong background in ethics, philosophy and moral responsibility is something they will have to bring to their children, and these are the same values we’ll want to instill into artificial intelligence.

The conversation invariably summoned up Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, first discussed in a 1942 science fiction story (‘Runaround,’ in Astounding Science Fiction‘s March issue) but becoming the basic principles of all his stories about robots. In case you’re having trouble remembering them, here are the Three Laws:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Asimov is given credit for these laws but was quick to acknowledge that it was through a conversation with science fiction editor John Campbell in 1940 that the ideas within them fully crystallized, so we can in some ways say that they were a joint creation. As Dave and I talked, I was also musing about the artificial intelligence aboard the Alpha Centauri probe in Greg Bear’s Queen of Angels (1990), which runs into existential issues that force it into an ingenious solution, one it could hardly have been programmed to anticipate.

Morphogenetic responses may be induced in organisms by hormones, by environmental chemicals ranging from substances produced by other organisms to toxic chemicals or radionuclidesreleased as pollutants, and other plants, or by mechanical stresses induced by spatial patterning of the cells.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents"[1]where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success.[2]John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955,[3] defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."[4]

AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other.[5] Some of the division is due to social and cultural factors: subfields have grown up around particular institutions and the work of individual researchers. AI research is also divided by several technical issues. There are subfields which are focussed on the solution of specific problems, on one of several possible approaches, on the use of widely differing tools and towards the accomplishment of particular applications. The central problems of AI include such traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.[6] General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still among the field's long term goals.[7] Currently popular approaches include statistical methods, computational intelligence and traditional symbolic AI. There are an enormous number of tools used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical optimization, logic, methods based on probability and economics, and many others.

The field was founded on the claim that a central property of humans, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine.[8] This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.[9] Artificial intelligence has been the subject of optimism,[10] but has also suffered setbacks[11] and, today, has become an essential part of the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult problems in computer science.[12]

Astronauts live up on busy space schedule

06-20-2012 00:34 BJT

The successful docking of the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft and the Tiangong-1 orbital lab signifies the start of a new chapter for the three Chinese astronauts on board. They'll work and live in the space module for the majority of their remaining 2-week journey in space.

Blasting off in a rather limited space in the Shenzhou 9, it took the three Chinese astronauts almost 2 days of orbital maneuvering and a good half hour's walking & crawling to finally reach the more roomy Tiangong-1.

Deng Yibing, Chief Engineer, China Astronaut Research & Training Center, said, "It was the busiest day for the astronauts since the blast-off. They didn't even have time to eat lunch. They had to monitor the automatic docking and prepare for the future manual docking. They also took some samples of the air in the laboratory. The temperature, humidity, and the level of carbon dioxide and oxygen partial pressure are all fantastic."

Despite being 350 kilometers above the surface of the earth, the astronauts are now working and living by the familiar Beijing Time. On their first night aboard Tiangong-1, Commander Jing Haipeng stood watch and crew member Liu Wang and Liu Yang rested.

But even in their sleep, there were sending valuable data to scientists back home.
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The successful launching of the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft on Saturday proves again China's grasp of essential space techniques and shows Chinese vision on how to develop the space programwith steady steps and rational goals, a Russian space expert said.

China's National Space Administration (CNSA) has adopted the policy of making small but reliable achievements, which could be summarized as "slower and better," Igor Lisov, a researcher in the Cosmonautics News magazine, told Xinhua in an interview.

Each mission of China's spacecraft is aimed at reaching exactly one particular achievement. "This time, the fourth one, the objective was to undertake the manned docking, the first in the Chinese space program'shistory," Lisov said.

Chinese space program

The space program of the People's Republic of China is directed by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Its technological roots can be traced back to the late 1950s, when the People's Republic began a rudimentary ballistic missile program in response to perceivedAmerican (and, later, Soviet) threats. However, the first Chinese crewed flight program only began in earnest several decades later, when an accelerated program of technological development culminated in Yang Liwei's successful 2003 flight aboard Shenzhou 5. This achievement made China the third country to independently send humans into space. Plans include a permanent Chinese space station in 2020 and crewed expeditions to the Moon and Mars.

Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.

A Ray Bradbury reading selection

'The Martian Chronicles,' 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' are among the late Ray Bradbury's most influential works.

By Nick Owchar, Los Angeles TimesJune 7, 2012If there's simply not enough time to read Ray Bradbury's entire body of work (even if you don't have a fireman with a flamethrower banging on your door), why not zero in on some of the books that stunned audiences and laid the foundation of his fame? Here are a few suggestions:The Martian Chronicles" (1950): Bradbury was a young, hungry writer with stories appearing in various magazines when he published this novelistically arranged collection of stories. The red planet fascinated Bradbury, but this book isn't a fantasy in the same fashion as Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventures of John Carter. The notion of colonizing Mars was less inspired by wild speculation than by the bleak cloud of nuclear war hanging over the world in the years when the stories were written and the book was published. Building a new human civilization on Mars is certainly an appealing notion when the old one on Earth seems on the brink of destruction. There are plenty of fascinating stories here to lose oneself in, but one of the most shuddering is "There Will Come Soft Rains," in which Bradbury takes readers into an automated house on Earth that continues with its numerous, daily routines even though the family isn't there to enjoy them. What happened to them? They were vaporized in an atomic blast.

Even if you aren't prepared to view yourself we should have pictures to view.

When you think about how seldom we get to see this transit, it may make you wonder how the Kepler mission ever gets a chance to see a far off planet transit its sun with only a few photons being blocked by the planet.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- News media and the public are invited to observe the transit of Venus broadcast live from atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, beginning at 3:04 p.m. PDT Tuesday, June 5, 2012 in the Exploration Center at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The June 5th transit will be the final opportunity to witness the rare astronomical reunion until 2117.

The transit occurs when Venus passes directly between Earth and the sun. Viewers will see Venus as a small dot drifting across the golden disk of the sun. There have been 53 transits since 2000 B.C. The rare event occurs in pairs, with the last transit occurring June 8, 2004.

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Reporters must send requests for media credentials to Michele Johnson at michele.johnson@nasa.gov by 5 p.m. PDT Monday, June 4, 2012. Batalha and other NASA officials will be available for interviews beginning at 1 p.m. PDT in the Exploration Center.

WHERE: NASA's Exploration Center is the large white dome located at the main gate of NASA's Ames Research Center. To reach NASA Ames, take U.S. Highway 101 to the Moffett Field, NASA Parkway exit and drive east on Moffett Boulevard towards the main gate and bear right into the parking lot.

For more information about the worldwide events, safety precautions for viewing, educational content and social media activities, visit:

Much of the world can witness the 2012 transit of Venus. The date depends on what side of the International Dateline you will be observing. Observers in North America will see the transit in the evening on June 5, 2012, through sunset, so you want to have a clear western horizon.Read More

The next transit of Venus, when the planet Venus will appear as a small, dark disk moving across the face of the Sun, will begin at 22:09 UTC on 5 June 2012, and will finish at 04:49 UTC on 6 June.[1] Depending on the position of the observer, the exact times can vary by up to ±7 minutes. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable celestial phenomena and occur in pairs eight years apart[2]: the previous transit having been in June 2004, the next pair of transits will not occur until December 2117 and December 2125.